Posted on 11/26/2001 8:55:36 AM PST by butter pecan fan
Safety Expert Gavin de Becker has found in researching his books, The Gift of Fear and Protecting the Gift that:
Researchers at familyeducation.com have collected the following statistics on kids and guns:
Also, see post #14 for info on the author.
The suicide statistic is silly. With the number of Americans owning guns, one would expect that a high number of suicides may occur in a home with a gun. The number they quote makes me want to shrug my shoulders and say, "So what. Tell me what that means". The author just lets the reader imply that a gun in the home has something to do with one wanting to kill themself.
More children die each year in accidents involving bikes, space heaters or drownings.
Useful stats. Thanks! BTW, what's your source on these? That'll make 'em even MORE useful...
If it's "correct" as stated, then it's not silly - since it's a "twice as likely to" statistic instead of a "twice as MANY" statistic (which is a kind of statistic people often lie with).
What we AREN'T told (which would be quite helpful) is what the rate is to START with, nor are we given any indication of the sample size. For example, if we were told that one out of 20,000 adolescents in homes without guns commits suicide (but one out of 10,000 in homes with guns, then we have more info there.
It occurs to me as well that buried in this statistic may be the dynamic that adolescents in homes with guns are more likely to SUCCEED at a suicide attempt, for obvious reasons.
Anyway, it would be good to know more about what's behind the stat.
The opposite is true for a telephone or electricity. Amish have lower suicide rates.
I suspect that HOW CHILDREN ARE RAISED, as well as the specific personalities of children and parents involved and the specific safety measures taken in a home (I include TRAINING here as a major safety measure) has a GREAT deal to do with EVERYTHING.
I would tend to agree. Statistics (especially selective statistics) without context are almost meaningless.
I read somewhere once that most people in the US die in hospitals.
Are hospitals places of death? Should we shut them down?
Or could there be a rational reason, for example, that hospitals are dispropotionately filled with sick and injured people who are more likely to die.
Likewise, "children" in gangs are probably more likely to die of gun related injuries because they are in contact with guns in their daily life.
It's not the gun, electricity, or telephone,....they are Christian. It would be interesting to evaluate "born again" Christian suicide rates against those that listen to Black Sabath, AC DC, or Marilyn Manson. Or for that matter the murder rate of both groups. I would assume the Christians would kill more often because they are intolerant of others. ;<)
Actually, a 147 year-old would be considered a "child" in this statistic, and an "American child being shot" is defined as any "child" who is wounded, or gets ill, for any reason and by any means when a firearm is within a 450-mile radius of the "child" in question.
Ya really gotta WORK them statistics, bro. Work em HARD!
Yes, it can be altered, or important and salient points can be left out (more on that in a moment), but it doesn't even HAVE to be ALTERED. A great deal is in the INTERPRETATION and PRESENTATION of the data.
Prime example of this is an anti-gun article I was reading on the bang list which claimed, tragically, that for every one woman who killed an attacker (I'm quoting from memory here but believe I'm real close), 51 women were killed by guns.
The point was, GUNS ARE INHERENTLY BAD.
And naturally, many in this forum said, "Well, if those 51 women had had handguns to defend themselves with, it probably would've been 52-0." That may have been stretching reality, since it might've been more like 26-26, but the point is: the statistic could BETTER be used to justify handgun defense!
Now here's what I mean by omitting relevant information:
Twenty-nine percent of high-school boys have at least one firearm; most are intended for hunting and sporting purposes.
Six percent say they carry a gun outside the home.
The National Institute of Justice, 1998
If I'm not mistaken, this is from a study which ALSO reported (as an incidental result) that CHILDREN WHOSE PARENTS BUY THEM LEGAL GUNS ARE MUCH LESS LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIMES THAN THOSE WHO OBTAIN GUNS ILLEGALLY, AND, INTERESTINGLY, ARE ALSO SOMEWHAT LESS LIKELY TO COMMIT A CRIME THAT CHILDREN WITHOUT A GUN IN THE HOME.
But we aren't told that part in the cited compilation of statistics...
Gavin de Becker is a consultant to the "thought" police.
He is an "expert" only because he holds himself out to be an expert. Click on his name for his sickeningly self-praising bio from his website. Here's a sample:
He has appeared as an expert on every major news show and has been interviewed several times by Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, Maria Shriver, Sam Donaldson, Mike Wallace, and Ed Bradley. He's been quoted and profiled in TIME and Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the New York Times, and many other publications.
That says it all, talk about a show for liberal kooks.
Yes, it would be very interesting indeed.
It would also be interesting to compare rates for home schoolers, private school attendees, and public school attendees. I would suspect that attending a public school would be a MAJOR risk factor for adolescent suicide.
Ironicaly his system cannot be blamed for the WTC bombing, or can it? This is just it, people with crystal balls and fortune tellers like GAvin are frauds of the first kind, never liable for their errors and failed systems.
My gosh, look where our tax money is going into. Into an unrepentant and paganistic government.
And who said big government was the problem, size certainly helps the arrogance.
Gunshot wounds are now the leading cause of death for teenage boys in America (white, African-American, urban, suburban).
A visit to the CDC website tells that teenage "boys" (age 13-17) are represented as follows:
MV Traffic 1,810
Firearm accident 117
Firearm homicide or "legal intervention" 756
Firearm suicide 513
Total deaths 2683
Thus, 1386 died from gunshots, including criminals shot by cops, while 1810 died in motor vehicle accidents. The first statement is a lie, as is the second.
Most of the rest could probably be shown to similarly deceptive.
"The assertions about “X children per day” are based on counting older teenagers, or even people in their early twenties, as “children.” The claims are true only if you count a 19-year-old drug dealer who is shot by a competitor, or an 18-year-old armed robber who is shot by a policeman, as “a child killed by a gun.” As for actual children (14 years and under), the daily death rate is 2.6. For children ten and under, it’s 0.4 per day—far lower than the number of children who are killed by automobiles, drowning, or many other causes."
About 1,500 commit suicide.
According to the CDC (see above post for link), even if we include adults age 18 and 19, the number killed in firearms accidents is only half their claim: 262. The number of firearm suicides is only 1241.
If they wanted to be honest, and include only minors not yet of voting and military age, the numbers are 202 firearms accidental deaths, and 648 firearm suicides.
I purposefully didn't put a "barf alert" because my purpose was discussion and digging out any genuine facts that might be hiding in here. A "barf alert" is (IMO) more of a signal to "pile on" than to discuss.
Personally, as someone interested in guns, I'm also highly interested in gun safety. Specifically: how can I make absolutely certain that having a gun(s) in my home will make for a MORE safe environment for my kids, rather than a LESS safe environment.
I suspect in the end that ALL statistics are of only limited value. Not ONE of us precisely matches the "AVERAGE PROFILE" of a group in a study. The REAL question is: given MY family and their personalities, MY situation, MY etc., etc., what is appropriate.
We have some friends with a teenage son who is just a hard-to-control lunatic, and has been that way since birth. NO WAY would I have a gun of any kind in that family UNLESS that particular son's access could be absolutely and permanently barred. If there's any way he could get ahold of the gun safe combination, forget it.
On the other hand, there are 8-year-olds who, given appropriate TRAINING, SUPERVISION, and PRACTICE, I wouldn't hesitate to trust with ready access to a fully loaded submachine gun...
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Now if I am not mistaken that's 5840 children killed and 23,360 wounded. If this were true there would be no guns in the hands of any civilian in this country....Pahhhhhhhhhlease People, Start reading the right documents
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